


My Heart's in Broken Pieces and My Head's a Mess

by nice_girls_play



Category: Actor RPF, Martin and Lewis RPF
Genre: 1940s, Discussion of Surgery, Eventual Romance, Frottage, M/M, Making Out, Medical Procedures, Mention of Antisemitism, Not Underage, Surgery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-03
Updated: 2017-07-01
Packaged: 2018-09-28 00:45:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10059848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nice_girls_play/pseuds/nice_girls_play
Summary: Dean has a problem on his face and a teenage boy in his bed. He'll worry about the boy later.





	1. July 1944

“I just don’t get it.”  

“I’m an eagle. What’s not to get?” Dean answers, staring at the blot on an otherwise decent set of features. The mirror is making it easy – it was smashed recently and has a large y-shape crack running down the middle and sauntering to the left, splitting his face into unequal thirds with his nose taking up the lower right quadrant. Picasso couldn’t have done it better.

“You’re a handsome man! Eagle or not. It’s not a reason to cut up your face.”

There’s every reason, not the least of which because the photo above the bill is what’s drawing tickets and income. A regular spot on the radio is good for a singer’s exposure, but not much else when you don’t have a sponsor. He’s lucky the radio gig came with a mattress and a roof over his head. Sleeping on Lou’s sofa has given him a stiff neck to go with his flattened nose.

“They don’t actually cut up the face!" A beat. "I don’t think they do, anyway...”

Dean spares a sideways glance in the uppermost fragment of the mirror, catching the reflection of the kid stretched out on the end of said mattress with his head hanging over the edge, face half-hidden by a comic book – Dean’s comic book. He briefly wonders what Betty would say if she knew he had an 18-year-old former cheerleader sprawled across his bed – or that he’d bought him a strawberry malted in the coffee shop earlier. Probably nothing good.

He looks back at his face, zeroing in on the area in question, framed in broken glass. He wonders if it would have been half the problem it seems to be now without the boxing; or without a career where his face was a selling point instead of his hands. He had made a better croupier than a boxer. Some days, he feels like a better singer than a croupier.

Of course there’s no use wondering whether it would have been a problem in the past. It _is_ a problem now. If he’s going to actually bring in some real money he can send home and not just whatever he can pool from loose change in dusty corners and back room card games.

“I’m an eagle and we’re gonna fix it,” Dean says. There. Decision made. He privately heaves a sigh of relief. The big question now is ‘how’ and which ‘we’ he can convince to help him pay a doctor to fix it. Lou, his manager, can probably chip in but not for the whole thing, which means relying on the capriciousness of whoever else he can bring in. This is going to take some work.  

“I still say it’s a bad idea.”

Which is a fine statement for someone whose own living is _founded_ on making funny faces. Dean stashes his impatience behind a cool mask, grabs a comb from the table and starts straightening his hair.

“You just don’t want competition,” he says, keeping his eyes away from his nose.

“What’s that?” 

“A good-looking kid like you doesn’t want someone else thinning the herd. Perfectly understandable – I get it.” He also gets that he needs about an inch off the bridge of his nose to be presentable. “Just wait ‘till they fix my ugly mug, kid – you’re going to be in so much trouble.”

After an unprecedented two minutes of silence, his gaze wavers to his companion’s reflection.

It’s a good thing that Jerry’s already lying down, he thinks. By the look on the kid’s face, even upside-down, a stiff breeze could knock him flat.


	2. August 1944, part 1

Sending the news to Betty takes two lines on a postcard: ‘Doc cleared me for surgery – don’t worry, it’s covered.’

He doesn’t tell her what he had to do to get it covered or, more specifically, how much more of his life he had to sign away to clear someone else’s check for it.

He does his best to forget himself the second the ink’s dry.

\--

The surgery is a breeze. The trip to the hospital that sets his teeth on edge, the journey in the elevator to the surgery floor – which stalls for two minutes somewhere between cardiology and the seventh layer of Hell… all of it is a sunny day at the beach compared to what he had to go through to get there in the first place. 

Dean tells himself that it will be worth it in the end and if he can white-knuckle it until the anesthesia kicks in, this will all be a dream. 

One more song, one more hand, one more round... all a dream. He doesn't realize he's said it out loud until someone in the operating room chuckles.

“How many times did you fight in the ring?” the anesthesiologist asks. He has clear green eyes and his jawline underneath the surgical mask reminds Dean of Randolph Scott – even nearly upside-down.

“Fought in twelve fights, won all but eleven,” he smirks. 

“Sounds rough.”

Dean tries to shrug against the table, finds it daunting with the sedatives coursing through his bloodstream and the mask hovering that close to his face like a storm cloud. 

“The landings got a lot softer once I figured out that I could bet against myself.”

The mask descends and Dean can feel his next breath stall in his throat. So much for fond reminiscing.

“Count down from eleven, Dino.”

\--

Looking in the mirror gets easier, but he can’t quite manage it the first day. 

Or the second day. 

On the third day, he focuses on the cracks in the mirror as he washes his face around the stitches, ignoring the larger, intact panes of glass that give him a peripheral glance of the horror show that is his face without the veil of the bandages. When he finds himself asking whether those dark smudges under his eyes are iodine or his own blood, he re-wraps, takes a tranquilizer and tries to forget what he saw.

WMCA is kind enough to give their unpaid singer two weeks off and to let him keep his room at the Belmont while he recovers from the surgery. Even they’re smart enough to see that asking him to sing “It Can’t Be Wrong” around the hard plastic shell on his face is an exercise in futility.

Dean recognizes that he got lucky on at least one front -- the surgeon they hooked him up with is an ear, nose and throat specialist and, statistically speaking, less likely to leave him with just one working hole in his head to breathe (and sing) through. 

Being that lucky, of course, comes with a price: the shell starts at the bottom of his forehead and slopes down to cover his upper lip, it bows and weaves like a wayward prow every time he breathes in or tries to talk. Underneath that, he has roles of gauze inserted in each nostril that he has to change every few hours. His voice sounds nasal when he talks and, around the bottom of the bandages, is still pretty indecipherable over the phone. 

He sends Betty a telegram in lieu of calling (“It’s done. Call Lou if kids still want to visit”). 

Because he can't phone to have food brought up to his room, he has to make the journey down to the coffee shop himself. Twelve flights of stairs so he can avoid the elevator. He can use the exercise.

The concierge, incoming guests, and wait staff seem to be traumatized just by looking at him. The seating area in the shop clears out in record time. For a little while, all he can hear is the scrape of silverware against disrupted plates, whispers of disgust in concert with disproportionately loud apologies to the waitresses. Finally, there’s just the silence of a cool coffee shop abandoned for the sticky heat of a New York sidewalk. He orders a coffee and tuna salad on rye toast, stares down at the top of the little bistro table, relieved that it’s not lacquered – no reflection to stare back up at him. 

He’s so focused on his not-reflection, he almost doesn't notice the chair pull out in front of him and the lanky body that drops into it. 

“Holy cow, you really did it.” 

Jerry's eyes are wide when Dean finally looks up at him. Not scared or repulsed like the others, more worried with a tinge of curiosity.

"How'd you know it was me?" he asks, annoyed at the cracked, nasal pitch that comes out. 

"Your jacket," he says. "Your eyes are the same, too. There's something that's just a bit off though..."

Dean can spot the precise moment when the concern melts away. From the second his young friend recognizes the brown eyes perched above the top of the gauze and satin tape, his wide eyes brighten and the lips twist mischievously.

"...new haircut?"

He buys the kid a strawberry malted. For his impertinence.

\--

Jerry keeps cracking up every time he takes a bite of a sandwich or has to say something that forces the shell to move and accommodate his face. 

“Will you stop with the giggling?”

“I can’t help it!” he grins. “You look like Claude Rains and sound like Danny Thomas.”

“Yeah? And you look like the kid in the iron lung from the news reels. Drink your damn milkshake.”

He's only half-joking as he says it -- always skinny, the summer heat seems to have the kid more drawn than usual, sweating out more calories than he can take in. This, Dean thinks briefly, is what he gets for taking time off to go to the doctor. 

“How long did you say you were in the hospital again?” he asks, slurping around the paper straw.

“In and out. Barely an afternoon visit. Lou went with me in the morning. I got a taxi back to the hotel afterward. Still not sure the driver didn’t stiff me, with the way they doped me up in recovery--“ he stops abruptly, watching as his young friend’s face gradually crumples inward, barely able to contain the smile he’s been wrestling with. 

Dean sighs.

“Go on then. Get it out of your system.”

Jerry’s giggles are a torrent in the coffee shop that is slowly re-filling with a wary afternoon crowd. Maybe it really is too hot to stay outside. Or maybe the sight of a heavily bandaged man humoring a giggling teenage boy makes it less scary to eat a few feet away from him. 

Dean feels better -- almost human. 

Still, he can't let the kid think he's home free. 

"Be nice, pally," he intones, trying to keep the shell's movement to a minimum. "Or else."

"Or else what?" Jerry asks, moving to take a sip through the straw.

"Or else I won't let you kiss me when this thing is off."

The next bit of milkshake ends up on Jerry's shirt and Dean has to thump his back twice before he stops coughing.


	3. August 1944, part 2

Craig wants on Daddy’s lap. He also wants to jump on the hotel bed – which is “bigger and squishier” than his bed at home. Gail wants an ice cream sundae from the coffee shop. She also wants on Daddy’s lap, but the bandages are frightening and she doesn’t seem to recognize the man with the familiar hands and eyes as Daddy at first. So she crawls under the covers of the other bed and bawls instead. 

Betty looks ready to cry herself for a while – hesitant to hug him, kiss his cheek, to get anywhere near his face. Or, maybe, just near him in general. Then she wants to shout at him about bills, about how she and the kids are wearing out their welcome at her parents’ place and if he’s going to set something else up for them, he had better do it soon… 

Dean’s headache is particularly bad after that and he takes two tranquilizers before lying down and closing his eyes. He figures Betty can still yell at him whether he hears her or not. 

Somewhere, sometime later, he registers a door slamming. Later, there’s a door opening quietly and two warm bundles being deposited next to him on the mattress. By the time he wakes up, both Betty and the sun are gone. Craig and Gail are sound asleep. He reaches over to switch on the bedside lamp and notices a note stuck underneath it. The familiar scrawl is large and hurried:

_‘Stuck around as long as I could -- Irving and me had a train to catch! Took the kids to the park, we had sandwiches and Gail ate all of my halva. ‘Hope you got Jewish delis in Steubenville!’_

They don’t. He wishes Jerry had stuck around long enough for him to tell him that. 

\--

He’s no good – just about everyone has told Dean that at least once. Teachers, rum runners, the guys at the betting tables, managers, his wife, his mother. He is a scum bag, worth nothing, and if he should get sore when any one of them says it, that means he’s worth _less_ than nothing. 

Fine by him.

If his whole life ain't worth the effort he puts into it, he'll chase the thrill.

Rum running was a thrill -- the first one. One night they’d just barely made it back over the state line, slipping the noose of local law enforcement who couldn’t follow them outside their jurisdiction. They were half a mile over the line in dead darkness when they killed the ignition and got out, whooped it up, hugged, and slapped each other on the back… Dean would never know what had gotten into him, but he’d shoved Matty up against the door to the truck and slanted his mouth over his.

That was the first time his nose was broken. His time in the ring later just widened the cracks his “kind of a pal” had left behind.

He fingered Matty's girlfriend in the back of her father's car two days later, while the rest of the boys played cards inside. Followed by Dum Dum's girl the week after that and Ruzzi's girl the day after he was arrested. He may have come out of it the most low down, self-serving "pal" this side of the Ohio River, but Matty never breathed a word. And who would have believed him if he had?

Being a fag, Dean reasons, isn't something that you do -- it's more like something that you are.

Being a man isn't quite the same -- it's attainable but not automatically ascribed. You get married, you have whatever family you can punch out, fuck whatever piece you can get when your wife isn't looking. That's what makes you a man. Tally up the points and you can make the score. You don't even have to compare with your neighbor because being a man isn't proportionate to the real numbers – it’s more like a scavenger hunt with a set inventory. Scratch every item from the list and you can call the winner. By that criteria, Dean's a winner.

But he could work through every songstress, waitress, chorus girl on the east coast and it wouldn't make a bit of difference. He can call himself a man -- plenty of fags are men, too. He could go the rest of his life and never so much as lean in when another man stands just a little too close to him at a bus stop or in an elevator; he's a fag. He knows it. He privately wishes he'd first learned the word from someone else -- someone who didn't say it with the nasty edge of his mother's voice. The one that reminded him that she had once been all set to become a novice nun.

Jerry doesn't care. He’s Jewish for one thing – nuns ain’t shit. He’s immune.

The kid was also raised by a rotation of aunts and a grandmother who, to hear him talk, were far more formidable than Dean’s father or any of the men turning up to his shop for a shave and a haircut ever was. The threat of being labelled effeminate -- less than a man and, therefore, a woman -- is lost on him. Nazis marched through the suburb he lived in and he came home more than once to "kike" and "yid" painted on his front door. He popped at least one teacher that thought they could call the skinny weird one a “dumb Jew” without retaliation. People can call him whatever they want. He is who he's going to be, and his vision on who that is seems to be five steps ahead of everyone else. Sharp.

There's a softness to him as well -- wide open and warm and far less remote than anything Dean’s used to from other people. It’s something he would cover with his whole body to protect, though one more growth spurt and the kid will be taller than him (if the hair he slicks half a can of pomade in doesn't get him there first). There's an ease between them that defies explanation, but he had felt it run right through him with their first shared laugh. He continues to feel it with every note he finds nailed to the wall in the dressing room, every chance encounter in the lobby or the Belmont's coffee shop or on the street. 

Seven million people in New York and he keeps running into the same goofy kid from New Jersey. If Jerry were a girl, some people might call that fate.


	4. September, 1944

\--

Sonny King, the sometime singer, sometime dock worker from Brooklyn, is the first one to comment when the stitches are out and the bandages are off for good.

“I can’t see no difference," he smirks into the upper right quadrant of the busted mirror. "Are you sure the doctor didn’t just beat up your ugly mug when you were under?” 

His manager, Lou, is equally unimpressed. 

"We'll get you a new head shot once the swelling goes down. Lucky you that gives me a couple of days to plan -- find an idiot that can work with shadow."

Dean waves them off, eyes fixed on himself in the damaged glass, at the cracks first and then taking a step back to see the whole picture. He has yellowing bruises under his eyes, same eyes, same jaw, even the same smile when he tries for it. His face is minimally scarred -- just a small line above the more narrow bridge of his nose, where the surgeon made the initial incision. 

He stares long after Lou and Sonny are both gone, staring at himself in razor-edged, piecemeal glory. Turns his face to the left, then the right. Tries for another smile and can't quite make the muscles work. Not yet.

It's his face, fractures of memories rebounding in his brain the longer he continues to stare at his reflection. How he is versus how he was, finally settling on "how he was supposed to be all along." Before Matty's punch, before the ring, before all of it. 

This is what he's supposed to look like.

He thought once he finally had that, he'd be done holding his breath. 

\--

The radio audience are just far away enough not to spot the surgery scar or the awkward way Dean holds his expression, waiting for the announcer to signal him so the show can start.

He's not quite at home in his new face yet -- still stiff in places and guarding against any nasal inflections that might slip out without warning. It can't be too bad -- Charlie, the band leader, gives him a thumbs up as he walks on to the stage even as the sound guy winces, clinging to his earphones with one hand and the other one reaching for his little panel of switches and dials, clearly ready to hit the dump button if Dean fouls up a single note. Or successive notes. 

Swallowing around the lump in his throat is difficult. He manages. The applause helps.

"Hi folks, this is Dean Martin," he smiles, not thinking, letting it wash over him for a second before he launches into his first song.

\--

The gig at the Glass Hat comes just in time. The weeks off recuperating just about cleaned him out. He's a week or two away from a sponsor starting to send in the payments for the radio show and his room and board at the Belmont may be coming to an end once he’s able to start touring again. It's in the same city -- the same building, even -- and it’s nice that preparing to do a show be can be as simple as walking downstairs. Dean takes full advantage of it, giving himself an extra twenty minutes to let the emcee and the band do their warm-up without his hovering after curtain up before he strolls in. 

He's barely handed the band leader his pages for the night when a stagehand nearly bowls him over. 

"You Dino?" he asks, straightening his headset.

"Yeah." The use of his real name is startling. He wonders if Lou sent them an old promotional package by mistake, braces himself for the possibility of being called 'Mr. Martini' for the rest of the night.

"Note for you in the dressing room."

The note is on the mirror when he walks in. Written on a torn piece of hotel stationary, blue ink pen, familiar handwriting but less hurried this time:

_'Behind you."_

Jerry's grinning by the time he turns around.

Something in his chest opens up and Dean can breathe again. He holds his arms open and Jerry jumps into them, beaming, arms tight.

"There's my pal." 

\--

The kid’s back, full of smiles and too fit to burst with stories from the road to leave it all for the end of the night. Dean gleans some of the key points in quick changes backstage and rushed moments between songs: he toured some veterans’ hospitals, a few clubs in the Midwest, met a girl in Detroit – not a local, another performer doing the same stable of shows for the servicemen. She's a petite girl, dark hair, the most gorgeous smile he's ever seen. 

“Jewish girl?” Dean asks. 

“Italian.”

A singer, Italian, and six years older than Jerry. Dean stops short of suggesting that his young friend might have a type. They've got two and a half more shows to do before the night is over and a discussion like that one takes longer than a few seconds' exchange covered by audience applause on stage. 

Dean stows each bit away, smiling through "Is You Is" and "Melancholy Baby,” face no longer tight, like he’s wearing a mask. He’s giddy and excited for the first time in months and it culminates in odd small ways like bumping Jerry’s record player when he’s onstage – so his out-of-sync act manages to be even more out of sync – his plastic expression pulled in even more outrageous directions as he works to catch up. 

Finally, the third show wraps, the club clears out and the band gets their marching orders. Dean lingers in the dressing room, smoking a cigarette while Jerry strips out of his shirt and jacket, packs up his costumes, a 78 of “Dinah” playing erratically on his well-loved phonograph.

“Do you have to play that thing?” Dean asks, stabbing his cigarette out on the chipped laminate they call a make-up table.

“I gotta re-learn all the skips again thanks to you,” Jerry answers, snapping the lid to his trunk shut.

"Yeah, sorry about that, I was getting punchy after that second show. ‘Needed a bit of excitement."

"It sure made the night exciting for me, pal! You're lucky I'm such a good sport."

Dean’s well aware of how lucky he is. He allows himself to ruminate on it for a bit while his friend smooths his pompadour in the mirror and the record spins on.

_Dinah_  
_With her Dixie eyes blazin'_  
_How I love to sit and gaaaaaaze..._  


_/skip/_  


_...to the eyes of Dinah Lee_

"So, can I see then?" Jerry finally asks, turning around.

"See what?"

"You know," he nods towards Dean's face, nine-year-old grin breaking through as he mimes an elephantine trunk where his schnoz used to be, followed by a pair of scissors. "Step over into the light, my son! I want to see you.”

"You ain't seen it yet?" Dean asks, flabbergasted. “You've been looking at me all night."

"I didn't get a _good_ look -- it's all dim and smoky out there! If I'm not out there, I'm gettin' changed back here and the head shot they got for you out front is old."

"I know. Lou said he was going to set me up for a new one. You're not looking at me right now?"

"We’ve got one light bulb in this place and you're too far away! Come here!" his shout turns to a whine and Dean finds himself grinning as he steps in closer until they’re standing face to face. 

Jerry leans in, squinting for effect. His eyes cross as he assesses the new beak up close.

"Verdict?"

“’Looks good!" Dean waits for the follow-up, the hedging, another punchline, but Jerry’s face is sincere as he says it. "I mean it. Hey, I liked your face anyway."

"Thank you."

"You gonna kiss me now or what?"

The bravado is unexpected. A statement like that with Jerry's normal delivery they could laugh off as a joke. But the tone is all wrong -- a full octave lower than Jerry's "character" voice, nearly to the real thing but not quite. 

He's... oh hell, the kid's _nervous_. 

The revelation makes everything in the room slowdown. The temperature in the place abruptly spikes ten degrees -- quite a feat for New York in September. And Jerry may be nervous but the spark that shoots through Dean in those handful of seconds is pure terror. He squashes it, schools his face into a relaxed smile and moves in closer, reaching for a pair of hips where most people would have curves and his young friend has flat planes and bones sticking out.

Dean wonders, when he’s less than an inch from the kid’s lips, if Jerry has kissed a man before and if it went any better than the last time he did. 

\--

Jerry Lewis _has kissed men before_. 

Dean doesn’t know whether to be sore about it or not -- mostly he’s just enjoying it, and the current of shock running just underneath only heightens it. 

There's a literal sweetness, not surprising given that his young friend lives on mostly sugar: milkshakes and candy bars and bubblegum wrapped in wax paper. And the intensity takes him by surprise -- like the kid's used to kissing crush-crammed into small spaces; unlit alcoves behind stages and the back seats of cars, heart-hammering and fast like he’s two seconds away from getting caught. 

A scrape of teeth along his bottom lip makes his groin tighten up and Dean makes a point of slowing it down, going deeper, leaning in while Jerry fumbles a hand against the wall. After a few abortive attempts, slender fingers reach the light switch and throw them both into darkness. 

Dean blinks, detaching briefly and flicking the lights back on with a static-filled 'hum.'

Jerry blinks at him myopically as the lights flicker back on.

“I locked the door," he murmurs, voice deep and smooth. "You can leave the lights on.”

"Okay," Jerry nods, breathless as Dean leans back into nip a full lower lip. 

They're not doing anything that warrants the lights off anyhow. Just necking in a tight corner of a tiny dressing room, no one to see but them and the mirror. No one left to catch them in a small space with the door locked. There's a part of his brain that reminds him he's got a room upstairs -- also empty, with a light switch and a lock on the door and an honest-to-god bed... 

But he'd have to step away for that and he doesn't want to spook Jerry. He doesn’t think the kid will punch him, but he might just decide that after twelve flights of stairs or watching Dean quietly short-circuit in the elevator that this isn’t quite what he had in mind after all.

A hand steals down his back, lightly pawing, pressing through his shirt. Snuffles and murmured vocalizations as he moves his lips to the kid's jaw. 

Maybe not. 

“You’ve done this before,” Dean says against Jerry’s ear. 

More muffled vocalizations, lost in the moment. He smiles and just leans in, his own hands moving up to ruffle his partner’s hair fondly.

It's as much of an answer he can hope for to something that’s not really a question. He hopes to god it was the kid's choice. 

He's heard the story about Jerry losing his cherry to a showgirl at twelve or thirteen, possibly younger. Sonny had recounted the tale with a sly grin, not realizing how apt the term "losing" was in that case. Because even an idiot scumbag like Dean knew that no one that young had any real choice in giving it up, whoever it was might be doing the taking. 

“So have you,” Jerry finally answers. 

Also not a question. Not an accusation, either -- and Dean's grateful for that in a way that cannot be measured. Of course he can’t say that. He settles for shrugging instead.

“Not with anyone as fun as you," he says, nearly purrs.

It works. Jerry beams and Dean can feel his stomach move up into his throat as the kid dips forward to steal another kiss, losing his footing in the process and forcing Dean to catch him before he falls, hoisting him up against the wall.

He's definitely taller than him now, wiry legs locked around his waist, and scrawny hips canting down, forcing Dean's to tilt up and press flush against his, not enough space for a hand between them. He distantly realizes that they're both leaning against the fucking mirror and Jesus Christ, Jerry's so fucking skinny, this is so easy, and it's going to be over before they’re even _out the goddamned door_ , let alone up the stairs to his room. 

Jerry's gasping, breath coming faster and Dean bites his neck. Softens it to a press of lips moving back up to his friend's ear, smiling at the shudder that runs through the skinny boy in his arms like an electrical current, making him grip him tighter, bony knees nearly meeting at the base of his spine. His fingers dig into a lean thigh and he thrusts, aiming for a little friction and, if the sound in his ear is any indication, getting an explosion instead. The sharp cry against his neck, followed by fingernails in his back, sends him skittering over the edge not long after, locking his knees so he stays upright.

They’re both panting as they come back up for air, harsh, sporadic breaths overlaid with Danny Kaye’s patter and the hisses and pops from the phonograph. His thumb is stroking his best friend's face just as the lights go out, throwing them both abruptly into darkness.

Dean's breath staggers out, morphing into a dry laugh. "They take the dim-out conditions more seriously these days."

"Is it raining?"

"Feels damp to me." Goddamn right it does. He's going to be washing his pants in the sink in the morning. He tucks his hand under one knee and then the other, helping Jerry slide down to stand on his own two feet. Face to face, still leaning in.

“The record player’s stopped, too.” 

“There’s light under the door – the rest of the place still has power!”

Dean nods, rubbing his eyes as he steadies himself. Of course. The club operates on a different circuit breaker from the rest of the hotel. Kill the switch to save power points with the OPA and owe a few less pennies to Consolidated Edison. Dean had seen it in Akron, before the Army decided his 1A looked a hell of a lot like a 4F.

“Well, at least we’ll be able to see our way back upstairs.” He says, bumping his shoulder against Jerry’s, relieved to hear an answering giggle. 

That's a yes... Dean wants to sing. 

"Did we bust the mirror?"

"I... don't think so," he pats down the wall to be sure, eyes adjusting until he can almost see his reflection -- whole and perfect. In a mirror with a hairline crack in one corner. Shit. He smiles.

"We'll tell them the maintenance guy did it."

"Good idea."


End file.
